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Best Practices , Customer Analytics , Customer Engagement , customer lifetime value , customer retention , Customer Retention & Churn , customer success , free trial , freemium , General , Lifecycle Marketing , resource center , saas best practices , saas community , saas industry , SaaS Marketing , SaaS sales

Presenting – the SaaS Resource Center

By Guy Nirpaz March 15, 2012

Resource Center Screen Shot

This week we’ve added a section into our website which I believe would add value to the SaaS Community – I present our SaaS Resource Center!

The Resource Center is a place where we update the most important/informative/valuable articles on 7 of the hot categories that are most current these days in the SaaS industry and I believe this knowledge base would assist many beginners as well as veterans in this industry to learn on new trends in their fields.

Resources Print Screen

Here are the categories the Resource Center approaches:

  1. SaaS Best Practices – Will consist our latest SaaS business models and SaaS best practices and is updated with the hottest topics facing SaaS software and Cloud app vendors today.
  2. SaaS Sales Tips – B2B sales tips on different sales models such as low touch or zero touch, sales metrics and the best practices to build the ultimate sales machine.
  3. Lifecycle Marketing – Drive the usage and adoption of your application and maximize customer lifetime value. Nurture existing customers based on their specific needs and wants and their use of your application.
  4. Customer Analytics – Perform customer, conversion, cohort, funnel, usage or churn analysis. Discover how big data and customer intelligence can increase SaaS revenues.
  5. Free Trial & Freemium – Free trial tips, benchmarks and best practices and the way to optimize trial conversion and freemium conversion.
  6. Customer Engagement – Increasing customer/user engagement and customer lifetime value and reduce churn through lifecycle marketing and other techniques.
  7. Customer Retention – New strategies to increase customer lifetime value and reduce churn for SaaS businesses, how to identify customers at risk and how to implement customer retention strategies.

If there is a topic that we haven’t addressed and you think is worth mentioning, please don’t hesitate to comment on this post with the subject and we promise to consider it.

Also, if you’d like to guest-post in one of our categories, please feel free to contact me through this form and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Cheers,
–Guy

Added Value , b2b sales , Best Practices , customer satisfaction , Customer value , free trial , freemium , prevent churn , saas industry , SaaS sales , subscription base , User Engagement

10 Tips for B2B Sales in the Subscription Economy

By Guy Nirpaz December 14, 2011

Subscribe

The subscription-based economy is thriving.  Netflix’s well-known model (and subsequent public relations mess in changing it), and the recent announcements from Google and Apple have set it in stone.

The subscription model, like many of the B2B sales models in the SaaS industry, is all about the customers – listen to your customers and have your service to comply and you’re on the right direction!

Here are 10 tips that can assist subscription based companies to get by in the industry:

1. Keep it simple

Ease of use is a key aspect of the subscription economy.  Subscribers want the one-stop shop, and their attention will not be kept easily.  Frustration, which might lead to churn, can be easily ensues if they can’t find what they want or need.

2. Customize to the consumer

Bob’s business is not the same as Mary’s.  Can you offer flexible payment options (weekly, monthly, annually)?  Family versus individual?  Basic versus premium?

3. Curate

More is better, but more can also be overwhelming.  Netflix’s popularity is in part because it offers customized selections based on its subscribers’ viewing history.  If the subscriber never, ever watches foreign language films, they don’t want to have to scroll through them to get to the good stuff.

4. Make it social

Can your subscribers see what others think of this product?  Can they easily share it through social media?  Social media has the power to sweep many others and help in distribute your message – and it’s free, so you might as well use in your business favor.

5. Offer continuing value

Make sure your offers will always consist of an added value. Can some ancillary information help your subscribers?  Partner with other companies that add value.  Also, what new thing can you offer?  Can you surprise them with how good it will be?

6. Keep it open

Remember what we said about the ancillary market?  Is your forum open enough to allow add-ons?  Don’t keep things so proprietary that spontaneous creation is stifled.  Think of Flickr, for example – would it help or hurt their business to team with a photo editing application?  It would help, of course, and they’ve allowed just that.

7. Give it away

If you still haven’t done so, consider  using a free-trial or freemium model for your product. Subscription economy is likely to be ruled by the free-to-join.  For example, you can make your overall platform free and have advertising, add-ons or premium offerings in order to make it profitable.  Think Facebook – free to join, but not likely to go broke anytime soon.

8. Don’t charge for that which was once free

How would you like to have nearly 9000 pages of complaints about your new pricing structure?  That’s what Netflix got for their announcement that they were nearly doubling their prices, removing services their subscribers had gotten used to having included, and offering no additional value in the exchange.  Calling it a great deal just added fuel to the fire.  (If you can’t give it free, keep it as low as possible!)

9. Keep the customer relationship as thy first priority

With the Netflix debacle, it’s not just about the pricing.  Their customers felt personally betrayed.  If you succeed in accomplishing a real relationship with your subscribers, where they recommend your service not for incentives but because they’re real fans, the worst thing you can do is spoil that relationship in a “money grab.”  Nurture your relationship.  Keep customers in mind as you consider changes.  Get feedback on proposed changes.  Don’t sell their information to spammers or let slimy advertisers in.  Business is more personal than ever.

10. Enjoy

Customers in the subscription economy are more savvy than ever.  They can tell if you honestly love your own offerings or if you’re just using sales tactics.  Let you enthusiasm shine through and it would be a win-win situation!